Sunday, December 07, 2014

The serial deadly errors of US foreign policy

131 comments:

"I think amoral is a better and more precise, descriptive term. With Dick Cheney, it's all about power. Yes, it's about wealth coming from that power, too -- he's worth $70 million or $80 million now, so one can hardly say that's not the case -- but I think the power aspect of it ... is more important to him than the amassing of wealth," Wilkerson said.

He added that an amoral person makes for "a more dangerous individual" than an immoral one.

"Immorality is something that can be ferreted out, checked and balanced. Amorality is an altogether different affair, especially when you're exploiting the politics of fear in order to carry out state purposes, which is what Dick Cheney's forte is," he said.

During a recent interview with The Real News Network, Wilkerson took aim at McCain and Graham for what he saw as similarly aggressive postures toward negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. Asked what were the biggest obstacles to a deal, Wilkerson first named Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose "extremely right-wing government" Wilkerson accused of being too inflexible.

Wilkerson continued:

And then you come to this country and you find Netanyahu's allies in people like Senator John McCain, Senator Lindsey Graham -- from my home state -- and others, who are bordering on being traitors in my view, because they won't let this president have room to achieve a diplomatic solution. They're all angry now that he didn't bomb Syria. . . . And so they're moving on to Iran.

McCain and Graham have both voiced support for Netanyahu's hardline stance on Iranian negotiations, insisting that the Islamic country abstain from any nuclear enrichment for the foreseeable future. Iranian President Hasan Rouhani has insisted that such a demand is a non-starter.

McCain must have done some real bad shit while captured by the Vietnamese, real bad. He doesn’t fit the mold of those who have seen the worst in war, who are usually quite passive. Graham is a closet queen, too weak to come out and plays the hypo-macho.

The video is enlightening to anyone with a brain, a sense of history and not owned by an allegiance other than to the US and is sympathetic to the human carnage, death and dismemberment done to US servicemen. The second part of the video discusses the acute danger of a nuclear Pakistan, a Pakistan that is daily provoked by US assaults on its territory. There is not one member of The Conga Line that would tolerate a foreign power from half way around the world attacking Arkansa, Massachusetts, Ohio or New York with drones.

It is criminal indifference or some other psychosis or derangement that one human being believes that another would act so differently from themselves. We expect others to honor our rights but arrogantly ignore theirs because we are exceptional?

As to Obama, I knew he would break the first time he sat on Air force One and he fell into the adoration of the military. Look at the self inflicted damage that we have done since 911. The only consolation is it could have been worse and the Neocons and their castrado could have made it even worse. They are still at it.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- French president François Hollande met with Russian president Vladimir Putin during an unannounced visit in Moscow on Saturday to hold crisis talks over ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. Hollande made a brief stop at Moscow's Vnukovo airport on his flight home from Kazakhstan, making him the first senior western leader to visit Putin since Russia annexed Crimea in March. Putin said he hoped a ceasefire agreement would be reached soon.

I noticed, yesterday that a new Name/URL Anoni was discussing the Rat Doctrine and its application in Syria.

The poor fool, he was confusing the 'Strategic Bombing' that the US military was carrying out, in Syria, with the Rat Doctrine.

What the US is doing in Syria, other than in Kobane, is 'Strategic Bombing', which is what was advocated by Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson. Of course it is not appearing to provide positive results.

Anoni provided a data link that indicated just the opposite, that it was making al-Qeada more popular. This was why I argued so strongly against "Draft Dodger" Peterson's position on 'Strategic', or as he described it "Carpet Bombing". A doctrine of air offense that will not work against an enemy with a lack of strategic targets.

Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, being a dirt farmer was confused by the difference between Close Air Support, the essence of the Rat Doctrine and 'Strategic Bombing', which is what he had been calling for. Our new Anoni must have confused the two concepts, as well.

Both of those fellas, "Draft Dodger" Peterson and our new Name/URL Anoni are not knowledgeable in the application of military strategies and tactics. The link provided by Anoni told us that 'Strategic Bombing', what Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson has repeatedly advocated for, was failing, in Syria.

As was predicted here, back when Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson made his case for it.

Of course it is a war rime to kill civilians in Central America, which is why the Israeli backed Rios Mont was tried and convicted, in Guatemala.

If Israel had not supported the genocide perpetrated by Rios Mont, tens of thousands of people would have been spared a brutal death at the hands of Israeli trained killers. As was documented in the media and the appropriate courts of Guatemala.

“To me the Zionists, who want to go back to the Jewish state of A.D. 70 (destruction of Jerusalem by Titus) are just as offensive as the Nazis.

With their nosing after blood, their ancient "cultural roots," ...their partly canting, partly obtuse winding back of the world they are altogether a match for the National Socialists.

That is the fantastic thing about the National Socialists,... that they simultaneously share in a community of ideas with Soviet Russia and with Zion.”

― Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941

I fully support the Israeli government reacting to terrorists by demolishing the family home of the specific terrorist.

Rather than react to terror by invading and destroying a nation like my own nation has done, America, taking the retaliation to the specific person and his family home, the punishment fits the crime. Now of course, Russia, the Poles and other Europeans used to punish the Jews by burning down homes WITH the JEWS inside for crimes against the "church". Of course there is no comparison since these crimes were fiction.

As for collective punishment, 850,000 Jews were driven from their homes from 1948-1967 as collective punishment for Israel being established.

Collective punishment? That would describe the actions of the terrorists that RESPONDED by calls from Abbas to fight back against the crimes of Jews ascending the Temple Mount.

Yes Jews walking on the Temple Mount is a crime in the mind of arabs that deserves the death of innocents, collect punishment....

There were no crimes committed by Jack Hawkins, the war crimes were committed by Israelis and their clients, in Guatemala , El Salvador and later, after the US withdraw from the old Canal Zone, Panama.

It has been thoroughly documented. Proven in the appropriate courts.You lose "O"rdure. Israel has been accused of a War Crime by the United States.It has been thoroughly documented, it will soon be in an appropriate court.

Henry Kissinger: ''In 10 years Israel will cease to exist''

Less than 8 years to go ...http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2012/10/30/16913.shtml

December 5, 2014—The passage of H. Res. 758 strongly condemning Russia is a prime example of how so many members of the current Congress are out of step with the U.S. Constitution, with peace, and with the American people, according to Congressman Ron Paul.

The resolution passed in the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday “strongly condemning the actions of the Russian Federation, under President Vladimir Putin, which has carried out a policy of aggression against neighboring countries aimed at political and economic domination.” InCOA-map_of_Russia copy an article for the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, Ron Paul describes this bill as “16 pages of war propaganda that should have made even neocons blush, if they were capable of such a thing.”

This bill reminded him of a vote in 1998 on the Iraq Liberation Act, a bill that jumped all over Saddam Hussein in Iraq saying he was about to attack us with nuclear weapons. He knew the legislation would lead to war, and look where we are now.

Here are some points from the resolution, as outlined in his article:

• The resolution (paragraph 3) accuses Russia of an invasion of Ukraine and condemns Russia’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty. The statement is offered without any proof of such a thing. Surely with our sophisticated satellites that can read a license plate from space we should have video and pictures of this Russian invasion. None have been offered. As to Russia’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, why isn’t it a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty for the US to participate in the overthrow of that country’s elected government as it did in February? We have all heard the tapes of State Department officials plotting with the U.S. Ambassador in Ukraine to overthrow the government. We heard US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland bragging that the US spent $5 billion on regime change in Ukraine. Why is that OK?

• The resolution (paragraph 11) accuses the people in east Ukraine of holding “fraudulent and illegal elections” in November. Why is it that every time elections do not produce the results desired by the US government they are called “illegal” and “fraudulent”? Aren’t the people of eastern Ukraine allowed self-determination? Isn’t that a basic human right?

• The resolution (paragraph 13) demands a withdrawal of Russia forces from Ukraine even though the U.S. government has provided no evidence the Russian army was ever in Ukraine. This paragraph also urges the government in Kiev to resume military operations against the eastern regions seeking independence.

• The resolution (paragraph 14) states with certainty that the Malaysia Airlines flight 17 that crashed in Ukraine was brought down by a missile “fired by Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine.” This is simply incorrect, as the final report on the investigation of this tragedy will not even be released until next year and the preliminary report did not state that a missile brought down the plane. Neither did the preliminary report—conducted with the participation of all countries involved—assign blame to any side.

• Paragraph 16 of the resolution condemns Russia for selling arms to the Assad government in Syria. It does not mention, of course, that those weapons are going to fight ISIS—which we claim is the enemy—while the US weapons supplied to the rebels in Syria have actually found their way into the hands of ISIS!

• Paragraph 17 of the resolution condemns Russia for what the U.S. claims are economic sanctions (“coercive economic measures”) against Ukraine. This even though the U.S. has repeatedly hit Russia with economic sanctions and is considering even more!

• In paragraph 34 the resolution begins to even become comical, condemning the Russians for what it claims are attacks on computer networks of the United States and “illicitly acquiring information” about the US government. In the aftermath of the Snowden revelations about the level of U.S. spying on the rest of the world, how can the US claim the moral authority to condemn such actions in others?

• Chillingly, the resolution singles out Russian state-funded media outlets for attack, claiming that they “distort public opinion.” The US government, of course, spends billions of dollars worldwide to finance and sponsor media outlets including Voice of America and RFE/RL, as well as to subsidize “independent” media in countless counties overseas. How long before alternative information sources like RT are banned in the United States? This legislation brings us closer to that unhappy day when the government decides the kind of programming we can and cannot consume – and calls such a violation “freedom.”

• The resolution gives the green light (paragraph 45) to Ukrainian President Poroshenko to re-start his military assault on the independence-seeking eastern provinces, urging the “disarming of separatist and paramilitary forces in eastern Ukraine.” Such a move will mean many more thousands of dead civilians.

• To that end, the resolution directly involves the US government in the conflict by calling on the U.S. president to “provide the government of Ukraine with lethal and non-lethal defense articles, services, and training required to effectively defend its territory and sovereignty.” This means U.S. weapons in the hands of U.S.-trained military forces engaged in a hot war on the border with Russia. Does that sound at all like a good idea?

Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories: Trigger-happy: Israel’s use of excessive force in the West Bank

Israeli forces have repeatedly violated their obligations under international human rights law by using excessive force to stifle dissent and freedom of expression, resulting in a pattern of unlawful killings and injuries to civilians. They do so with virtual impunity due to the authorities’ failure to conduct thorough investigations. This report focuses on the use of excessive force in the West Bank since the beginning of 2011. It includes cases of killings and injuries of Palestinian civilians in the context of protests against Israel’s continuing military occupation of the Palestinian territories, illegal Israeli settlements and the fence/wall.

The incitement on the Arab street and around Jerusalem is increasing,” Rivlin said at the service, according to Israel National News. “The incitement which is backed by the leadership in the Arab world, can wreak havoc on the delicate fabric of life in Jerusalem, and carry us all into a maelstrom of destruction and pain.”

Reuven (Ruvi) Rivlin, the new President of Israel, is ardently opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state. He is instead a proponent of Greater Israel, one Jewish state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. He professes to be mystified that anyone should object to the continued construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank: “It can’t be ‘occupied territory’ if the land is your own.”

The Democrats suffered some pretty crushing losses this election season, and they know it. So the DNC convened a special committee to look into why they did as badly as they did, and various individuals serving on the committee have different reasons for why they lost so badly.

Was it Obama’s unpopularity? Actually, no, according to the testimonials of Nevada state party chair Roberta Lange and Indiana state party vice chair Cordelia Burks:

“I think it’s really wrong for people to say this is President Obama’s fault,” Lange said. “When you look back at his record of all the things he’s accomplished since the last election, it’s been phenomenal”…

“For those who were asked, did they vote for Barack Obama, the answer should have been ‘I’m a Democrat. Who the hell do you think I voted for?’ They didn’t have to call his name. No Democrat running for anything is going to vote for Mitt Romney. That should have been the answer,” Burks said.

So Obama didn’t really impact the race? Actually, the West Virginia state party chair, Belinda Biafore, admitted that the president and his policies ended up hurting state Democrats.

But did they also lose because the voters don’t agree with them? Well, not according to DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz:

“The voters agree with us… We know that where you could see by referendum the questions like increasing the minimum wage, like equal pay for equal work, like making sure that women’s health care was not unnecessarily restricted, Democratic policies were supported by voters and Republican policies were rejected. We have evidence, by voter turnout and election results, that voters do agree with us on that.”

So what explains their losses regardless? Well, they haven’t concluded the committee’s findings yet, but Wasserman-Schultz suggested it’s about motivating Democratic voters because they had good turnout in presidential election years but not-so-good turnout in midterm years.

I've come to the conclusion that the person some call The Crapper was never in Central America, never was a cattle rancher, is unemployed, doesn't have a printing shop and never did and is just an unemployed Jew hating bullshit artist and all round piece of human shit.

A friend far more plugged in than I to the scene in Berkeley warned me Friday to stay away from campus and downtown Saturday, starting at 5. A demonstration was being planned, she told me, and trashcans were already being removed from the streets so as to prevent them from being hurled through windows. Absolutely nobody but people living in a dream world expected there to be no violence.

And sure enough, after the sun went down and a brief interval passed, I heard the sound of helicopters whirring over Berkeley (where I have lived nearly 3 decades just a bit beyond a stone’s throw from campus), a sure sign that major police and media resources were being deployed. Live in Berkeley long enough, and you soon learn to gauge the Helicopter Index, first calibrated 45 years ago*, when then Governor Reagan deployed helicopters to tear gas the violent so-called “Free Speech Movement” (oh the irony! The last thing the Left today wants is free speech. Speech codes are now the party line on campus).

I could tell that this was going to be about 7 on a scale of 10, and so was not surprised to read in such media accounts as currently exist at this early morning hour that windows were smashed, police cars and other vehicles vandalized, and tear gas and flash bang grenades were deployed. One police officer was injured and treated at a hospital for a dislocated shoulder after being hit by something thrown at him, and demonstrators offered accounts of being hit with billy clubs. But there was no arson, and no shots were fired.

The demonstrations lasted about nine hours, beginning at 5 PM in Sproul Plaza on the UC Campus, and ranging over a wide area of the city. Marchers went about 2 miles or so down University Avenue, smashing windows and breaking (and stealing?) wine and beer bottles at a Trader Joe’s store along the way, to a commercial district at San Pablo Avenue with many stores serving an Indian clientele, where windows were broken on a Wells Fargo Bank branch. There was a gathering on Shattuck Avenue in the city’s downtown area, where people leaving concerts and theatres were hit with tear gas. And Telegraph Avenue, the shopping district that begins at Sather Gate, just off Sproul Plaza, site of the first violent campus riots 50 years ago, also saw action, including the smashing of store windows.

The most complete account can be found in Berkeleyside, a website focused on daily events in Berkeley, which provided updates from 5 PM to 2:43 AM. Notable in it are many assertions that the overwhelming majority of protestors were peaceful but that a comparative handful were intent on mayhem and property damage. The video below, taken by Tom Goulding, is notable for a bit of dialogue that can be heard toward its end, in which two people off camera discuss the violence, with one of them angry that police were deploying force (flash bang grenades and tear gas) and the other patiently explaining that when you start hammering and vandalizing police cars, you have to expect a response and you lose the moral authority. The video, only a bit over a minute and half long, is worth watching and listening to.

My general impression is that many of the protestors had little grasp of either the details of the incidents in Ferguson and New York, or of the violent intent of the revolutionaries who seek to spread chaos and unrest. They were probably genuinely surprised to learn that police could and would lawfully deploy force and declare a gathering illegal once violence was used by demonstrators.

But in mass gatherings, the initiative always lies with those willing to use physical means. And in the wave of demonstrations currently underway, a well financed and organized core of people are exploiting the fates of Michael Brown and Eric Garner to sow violence. A couple of years ago, it was the alleged sins of Wall Street and the “one percent” that were exploited. And next time, it will be something else. The classic expression of this sort of ambient rage and rebellion was committed to film 61 years ago, in The Wild One, where a motorcycle gang leader played by Marlon Brando was asked what he was rebelling against, and answered, “Whaddya got?”

I am certain many of last night’s demonstrators assumed that their own hearts were pure, as exemplified by this young woman quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle’s account of the night.

Protester Kelly Osajima, 24, of Emeryville said she had to speak out because “black lives matter. ... How can I stand by while this is happening?” she said.

The conviction that a wave of unjustified police violence against innocent young black males is what left has got right now.

*Thanks to a commenter who pointed out that Gov. Reagan's tear-gassing took place in 1969, not 1964 in the Free Speech Movemnet demonstrations, 50 years ago today.

This is because we have an American hating nincompoop in the White House.

Supports the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, doesn't lift a word in favor of the protesters in Iran, takes the troops out of Iraq way too soon resulting in us having seven devils now where we only had one (Saddam) before, fucks up Syria, disses Israel........right down the list, none of it makes any sense to anyone that has a lick of sense.

December 7, 2014Has Black America Reached the Point of No Return?By Patricia L. Dickson

I never imagined that we would reach a point in this country where facts would be ignored on a national level. We seem to have reached it with the Michael Brown case.

As I watched the spectacle of our elected official in the Congressional Black Caucus stand on the house floor and use the debunked “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture, I realized that black America has reached a point of no return. Every day since the Grand Jury decision was released (along with the autopsy findings and witness testimonies), our so-called black elected leaders along with black academics have appeared on network news programs making absurd pronouncements as though there had not been a Grand Jury proceeding. They outright ignore the facts and pretend as though Michael Brown did not commit any crime at all. They are able to continue such foolishness with the help of their cohorts in the left-wing media. Even some of the so-called black pastors are continuing the lie. It is obvious that these individuals are living in some alternate universe different from the rest of America.

Missouri state senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who represents Ferguson in the state legislature, went on national television and declared, “This is our race war.” If the rioting and looting that took place in Ferguson were indeed their race war, whom were they fighting? It appears that they were at war with themselves, since they burned down their own community. They surely were not at war with white America.

My friend Raynard Jackson wrote an article titled “Blacks Have Declared War On Our Own People,” published on the black website NewsOne, where he presented a scathing indictment of the current state of black America. He systematically took apart the ridiculous assertions that black leaders have been parroting since the release of the Grand Jury’s decision.

I do believe that war has been declared on Blacks, especially Black males; but who has made the declaration of war? I would argue that Blacks have declared war on their own people. White folks haven’t, nor racists, or the KKK.

He countered the assertion that white America does not value the lives of blacks by pointing out how the lyrics in rap music devalues black life more than anything white America could ever do.

We have created our own Frankenstein monster. This new Hip-Hop generation has experimented in the laboratory called a recording studio; and by exercising their First Amendment Right of freedom of speech and expression through music, they have lost control of the very monster to which they gave birth.

In the beginning, like with Frankenstein, people marveled at this new creation and people were willing to pay to see and hear it. There was “Rappers Delight,” there was “The Message,” and there was “Fight the Power.” Then, the imagery and lyrics took a twisted turn under a perverted interpretation of the First Amendment called “keeping it real.”

Now, the establishment, especially the police, had become the enemy. Hip-Hop became a counter-culture movement that turned into a monster that could no longer be controlled. Women became “bitches and hoes,” men became hyper-sexualized thugs who were only out to force themselves on your daughters and to “get rich or die trying.”

If it’s okay for Blacks to devalue the lives of our own people, how can we demand that Whites value us? White folks don’t need to do anything for Ferguson. They have all the power they need. The issue is will they exercise it?

No one is going to value an individual’s life more than he himself does. If one puts his or her own life in danger by attacking a police officer and attempts to take his weapon, how can that individual expect the officer not to value his life as well by defending himself? Oh, I forgot. According to black leaders and the left-wing media, Mike Brown was just walking down the street, minding his own business, and the racist white cop got out of his car and started firing at him. Is this entire ordeal an episode of The Twilight Zone?

As I witness black leaders’ and left-wing political pundits’ blatant attempt to ignore the facts that led to the Grand Jury’s decision not to charge officer Wilson for the shooting death of Michael Brown, Jr., I am wondering: what is the outcome that black leaders are seeking? Why are they so invested in a lie? What could they possibly gain from ignoring facts that the rest of America has accepted?

December 7, 2014Unarmed teen gunned down by cop of a different raceBy Jeff Brunner

On October 6, 2012,Mobile, AL Police Officer Trevis Austin gunned down a teenaged boy named Gilbert Collar. Mr. Collar, naked at the time, was visibly unarmed. (Apparently, Collar had taken two hits of a synthetic hallucinogen and believed himself to be on fire!) At 5' 7" and 135 lbs, Mr. Collar was hardly an imposing figure as he ran desperately among the traffic on a major

road. At one point, he did try to enter a civilian's car--one of the few with open windows and no air-conditioning. The driver, a former college football player, punched him hard in the face and pushed him away.

Mr. Collar did not seem even to notice the push or the punch, which showed Officer Austin all he needed to see to conclude that Collar was too crazed and dangerous to take alive. At a distance of just a few yards, Austin emptied his weapon into Gilbert Collar's chest, killing him instantly.

The case went to a Grand Jury, with considerable editorial input from the local press, demanding an indictment.

None was handed down.

Some outrage was expressed, locally, but there were no riots. Outside the Alabama Gulf Coast, the case went unmentioned and remains unknown. Neither Gilbert Collar's nor Trevis Austin's name, has ever appeared in our "Paper of Record." the New York Times.

There was a recent scandal that, as much as anything else, illustrates the intellectual emptiness and moral ennui of the modern liberal man. It occurred in Britain but reflects a wider phenomenon; what can be said about it can be said about happenings in Sweden, France, Holland, Canada or Belgium — or the United States.

It was discovered recently that Muslims in seven London schools were indoctrinating children with Islamic propaganda, ignoring Western culture and refusing to inculcate the “British values” of the moment. The situation was such that all of one school’s library books were in Arabic and many students couldn’t tell investigators whether they should follow British or Sharia law or which was more important. And one of these schools, mind you, was a state-run Church of England institution — that happens to now be upwards of 80 percent Muslim.

When hearing about the subordination of British law to Sharia and other such Islamic cultural inroads, one of my instincts is to say “So what?” Cry me a river of multiculturalist tears.

Multiculturalism, we’ve been told, dictates that all cultures are morally equal and deserve the same respect and footing within “Western” civilization. Never mind that the ideology is self-defeating. After all, since different cultures espouse different values, not all cultures can be “morally” equal unless all values are so. This makes multiculturalism not only a corollary of, but also a Trojan horse for, moral relativism. And consider the implications. If all values are equal, how can showing cultures equal respect be superior to cultural chauvinism? And what if another culture does prescribe the latter? It then follows that the people within it cannot both have their own culture, unaltered, and accept multiculturalism.

Nonetheless, since multiculturalism is considered enlightened by Western pseudo-intellectuals, it’s time for some personal petard hoisting. A Daily Mail piece on the Londonistan school situation tells us that some students told inspectors “it would be wrong to learn about other religions” and that “it was a woman's job to cook and clean.” The paper furthermore reported that schools were criticized for “failure to give girls equal opportunities,” narrow curricula, not preparing students “for life in a diverse British society,” not encouraging students “to respect other people's opinions” and for creating a situation in which students’ “understanding of the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance, is underdeveloped.”

What if these Muslims’ faith and culture dictate that women should be steered toward domesticity and shouldn’t have equal opportunity; that there should be not diversity but Islamic homogeneity; that not all opinions should be respected and that it is wrong to learn about other religions; and that Islamic theocracy is preferable to democracy? And the matter of “tolerance” is an interesting one. Since the term implies a perceived negative — you wouldn’t tolerate a delectable meal or fine car, but would have to tolerate a stubborn cold or bad weather — the reality is that tolerance is only admirable under two circumstances:

When something you dislike isn’t objectively bad, such as when you tolerate a vegetable you’re not partial to for health reasons. When you’re powerless to change something that is objectively bad, such as an irremediable crippling condition.

But if something is objectively wrong and can be eliminated, it is an abdication of moral responsibility to refuse to do so. And has it occurred to anyone that pious Muslims may instinctively realize this and, considering Western culture a misbegotten force (their perspective), view changing it a divine mission?

Be that as it may, given that multiculturalism espouses cultural equivalence and its correlative moral relativism, by its lights none of the bemoaned Islamic curricula standards and outcomes can be any worse than what secularists prefer. So what gives? Are you liberals denying these Muslim immigrants their culture and creed?

You certainly are. But this hypocrisy is nothing new. Multiculturalism has been used for decades, at every turn, as a pretext for denuding Western traditions and Christian symbols and messages from our cultural landscape, using “tolerance” and “diversity” as rallying cries. Even as I write this, a Washington state high-school senior faces expulsion from school for sharing his Christian faith, the idea being that such expression is “offensive.” Multiculturalism was always nonsense. “Anything goes” — as long as it’s branded “culture” — could never be a recipe for organizing anything because it doesn’t allow for distinguishing between anything and any other thing. A standard of some kind must be applied when devising laws, regulations and social codes; and standards, by definition, involve the upholding and imposition of values.

This is why G.K. Chesterton once noted, “In truth, there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don't know it.” Except for leftists possessed of evil genius, most are in the latter camp. Multiculturalism certainly felt right when useful for purging an element of tradition contrary to the liberal agenda; it doesn’t quite have the same glitter, however, when it would allow the institution of such an element. Multiculturalism is for use on other people’s dogmas; it’s not for use on the Left’s own.

Now, one pitfall of being a slave to one’s age who unknowingly embraces its dogmas is that you generally make the mistake of mirroring. This is when you project your priorities, feelings and basic suppositions onto others; in a nutshell, you assume that they take for granted the things you do.

When pondering this, realize that devout Christians (of which I’m one) are very similar to Muslims in this regard. This statement may raise eyebrows and even some dander, but just consider the recent cases in which Christians have accepted career destruction and punishment rather than be party to same-sex “weddings” or homosexual activism. Why are these Christians opposing the “law of the land”? And what standard informs them man’s law is wrong? What standard are they subordinating the law of the land to?

What they see as the only law that could be, and must be, above it: God’s law.

This isn’t to say Christians and Muslims are the same. They certainly have different conceptions of God’s law. And in keeping with this, Christian law generally didn’t clash with Western “secular” law — until secularists started holding sway — because our secular law reflected Christian morality; it was authored by Christian men, such as the Founding Fathers, who naturally imbued their system of law with their world view. As an example, the Declaration of Independence enunciates the basis for our constitutional rights, stating that men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

The situation with Sharia is far different. Since the tree of Western secular law wasn’t germinated from the seed of Islam, it was traditionally and remains today largely incongruent with Muslim principles; thus is a clash, in which Islam will ever try to burn that tree root and branch, inevitable.

Some moderns will now say that this is why no “religious” law should influence society. But not only is this a philosophically unsound position that fails to recognize the basis of just law (Absolute Truth), it also places a person in bad company: The Marxists and Nazis also aimed to neuter the Church and squelch belief in religious law. After all, a devout statist wants the state’s law to be pre-eminent; “Thou shalt have no gods before thy government.” And this won’t happen if people recognize a higher law.

And this recognition is what believing Christians, Muslims and Jews all have in common. It is also why it is silly, in the extreme, to expect Muslims to subordinate Sharia to Western secular law. You are literally asking them to place government ahead of what they see as God. This simply isn’t going to happen, and no amount of blather about “tolerance,” “diversity” and multiculturalism — which is just another way of saying “Accept our liberal dogmas” — is going to change that. And when the population of believing Muslims becomes great enough in a Western land, they will succeed in Islamizing governmental law.

German chancellor Angela Merkel announced in 2010, finally, that multiculturalism in her country had “utterly failed.” Talk about being a biblical day late and a budget deficit short. And she and other Western leaders still don’t get it. One can’t understand ideologies such as multiculturalism if he views them as disconnected social mistakes; they are all part of a deep philosophical/spiritual malaise. It isn’t just that the multiculturalist branch needs to be pruned or even cut off. It’s that the devout Muslims are right: the liberal-secularist tree, that Gramscian mutation, must be pulled up and incinerated in the Hell fires whence it came. And it will be. The only question is whether we will return to our roots or allow the complete erasure of Western civilization.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

Complacencies of the peignoir, and lateCoffee and oranges in a sunny chair,And the green freedom of a cockatooUpon a rug mingle to dissipateThe holy hush of ancient sacrifice.She dreams a little, and she feels the darkEncroachment of that old catastrophe,As a calm darkens among water-lights.The pungent oranges and bright, green wingsSeem things in some procession of the dead,Winding across wide water, without sound.The day is like wide water, without sound,Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feetOver the seas, to silent Palestine,Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

II

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?What is divinity if it can comeOnly in silent shadows and in dreams?Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or elseIn any balm or beauty of the earth,Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?Divinity must live within herself:Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;Grievings in loneliness, or unsubduedElations when the forest blooms; gustyEmotions on wet roads on autumn nights;All pleasures and all pains, rememberingThe bough of summer and the winter branch.These are the measures destined for her soul.

III

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.No mother suckled him, no sweet land gaveLarge-mannered motions to his mythy mind.He moved among us, as a muttering king,Magnificent, would move among his hinds,Until our blood, commingling, virginal,With heaven, brought such requital to desireThe very hinds discerned it, in a star.Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to beThe blood of paradise? And shall the earthSeem all of paradise that we shall know?The sky will be much friendlier then than now,A part of labor and a part of pain,And next in glory to enduring love,Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

IV

She says, “I am content when wakened birds,Before they fly, test the realityOf misty fields, by their sweet questionings;But when the birds are gone, and their warm fieldsReturn no more, where, then, is paradise?”There is not any haunt of prophecy,Nor any old chimera of the grave,Neither the golden underground, nor isleMelodious, where spirits gat them home,Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palmRemote on heaven’s hill, that has enduredAs April’s green endures; or will endureLike her remembrance of awakened birds,Or her desire for June and evening, tippedBy the consummation of the swallow’s wings.

She says, “But in contentment I still feelThe need of some imperishable bliss.”Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreamsAnd our desires. Although she strews the leavesOf sure obliteration on our paths,The path sick sorrow took, the many pathsWhere triumph rang its brassy phrase, or loveWhispered a little out of tenderness,She makes the willow shiver in the sunFor maidens who were wont to sit and gazeUpon the grass, relinquished to their feet.She causes boys to pile new plums and pearsOn disregarded plate. The maidens tasteAnd stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

VI

Is there no change of death in paradise?Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughsHang always heavy in that perfect sky,Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,With rivers like our own that seek for seasThey never find, the same receding shoresThat never touch with inarticulate pang?Why set the pear upon those river banksOr spice the shores with odors of the plum?Alas, that they should wear our colors there,The silken weavings of our afternoons,And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,Within whose burning bosom we deviseOur earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

VII

Supple and turbulent, a ring of menShall chant in orgy on a summer mornTheir boisterous devotion to the sun,Not as a god, but as a god might be,Naked among them, like a savage source.Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,Out of their blood, returning to the sky;And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,The windy lake wherein their lord delights,The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,That choir among themselves long afterward.They shall know well the heavenly fellowshipOf men that perish and of summer morn.And whence they came and whither they shall goThe dew upon their feet shall manifest.

VIII

She hears, upon that water without sound,A voice that cries, “The tomb in PalestineIs not the porch of spirits lingering.It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.”We live in an old chaos of the sun,Or old dependency of day and night,Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,Of that wide water, inescapable.Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quailWhistle about us their spontaneous cries;Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;And, in the isolation of the sky,At evening, casual flocks of pigeons makeAmbiguous undulations as they sink,Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

"If of the 10.3 million Jews … we had killed 10.3 million, I would be satisfied, and would say, Good, we have destroyed an enemy," Eichmann told the group. He added, "We would have fulfilled our duty to our blood and our people and to the freedom of the peoples, if we had exterminated the most cunning intellect of all the human intellects alive today."

Eichmann was not a stupid man. Neither was he ignorant nor a pawn. Eichmann was a student of Judaism and kept a Jewish teacher, even during the war. He knew exactly what he was doing and why.

I have always had doubts about Arendt's views. Then, of course, there was her relationship with Heidegger. It was in everyone's best interest for Eichmann to be portrayed as "banal".

According to legal requirements, the secretary of Defense must inform Congress of the intent to transfer any inmates.

“The United States is grateful to the government of Uruguay for its willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility,” the Defense Department said in announcing the transfer Sunday.

The prisoners arrived in Uruguay early Sunday, and five were taken to a military hospital and a sixth in more serious condition was admitted to Maciel Hospital in Montevideo, the capital.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren told the Jerusalem Post that Israel so wanted Assad out and his Iranian backers weakened, that Israel would accept al-Qaeda operatives taking power in Syria.

“We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.”

Even if the other “bad guys” were affiliated with al-Qaeda. “We understand that they are pretty bad guys,” Oren said in the interview.

Melissa Harris-Perry is taken seriously in some quarters, having her own weekend show on MSNBC and holding a professorship at Wake Forest University, even sporting a PhD from Duke. But she has a history of acting foolishly on air, as when she mocked Mitt Romney’s family picture for including his recently adopted black grandchild, only to tearfully apologize. Then there is this fashion statement:

Obviously, Professor Harris-Perry has never known anyone who has poured his or her life into starting and keeping open a business, such as a beauty supply store or cell phone outlet. The endless hours and sacrifice of family life necessary to make a business work through thick and thin constitute the very essence of a person’s life, and the loss of a business to arsonists and looters constitute an attack on that person’s life. When he or she loses the business, part of that person’s life is lost, too.

But how would she know that? She would have had to talk to such people and listened sympathetically to their stories. She would have had to understand that meeting a payroll when sales are down, or shoplifters have overwhelmed the retail margin, means sacrificing other important things, selling off precious possessions so that employees can be paid, or working a second job on the graveyard shift to put food on the table when the business is failing.

I would wager a substantial amount of money that Harris-Perry considers herself a caring and compassionate woman. But progressives have a way of dehumanizing people with whom they disagree, and regarding people who actually seek to create and maintain a business as exploiters, and therefore subhuman.

A hundred years before the advent of Hitler, the German-Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine, had declared: "Wherever books are burned, human beings are destined to be burned too."

On the night of May 10, 1933, an event unseen in Europe since the Middle Ages occurred as German students from universities once regarded as among the finest in the world, gathered in Berlin to burn books with "unGerman" ideas. …. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-bookburn.htm

Civilized people do not burn books.

May 20, 2008 - Orthodox Jews burn hundreds of New Testaments in latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in Israel. ... The Maariv newspaper reported Tuesday that hundreds of students took part in the book-burning. . . . https://www.google.com/search?q=israel+book+burning&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb

• Four million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories lack the right to vote for the government that controls their lives through a military occupation.

In addition to controlling the borders, air space, water, tax revenues, and other vital matters pertaining to the Occupied Territories, Israel alone issues the identity cards that determine the ability of Palestinians to work and their freedom of movement.

• About 1.2 million Palestinian Israelis, who make up 20 percent, or one-fifth, of Israel’s population, have second-class citizenship within Israel, ... ... which defines itself as a Jewish state rather than a state for all its citizens.

More than 20 provisions of Israel’s principal laws discriminate, either directly or indirectly, against non-Jews, according to Adalah: The Legal Center for Minority Rights in Israel.

Millions of Palestinians remain refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere, unable to return to their former homes ...... and land in present-day Israel.

Even though the right of return for refugees is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

And now, the Vice President of the United States accuses Israel of committing War Crimes

>>>The Gaza war made the Likud very popular. The Jewish public almost unanimously supported the operation against the Hamas barbarians. Israelis do not think that too many Gazans were killed but rather that too few were. The main complaint from Israeli Jews was that the Likud did not go far enough and ended the military incursions there too soon.

But the Gaza war also decimated the political base for the Likud’s opposition. In Gaza, Israel had carried out to the letter every “idea” of the Israeli Labor Party and its allies. It had evicted the entire Jewish population of Gaza, removed every single Israeli soldier and military asset, turned the area over to the “Palestinians,” ending every single vestige of “occupation.” The result was the raining down of thousands of rockets upon the Israeli civilian population fired from Gaza, some hitting Tel Aviv and some landing near the airport, plus the terror tunnels built to carry out large-scale massacres of Jews. The Hitlerjugend on Western campuses may be marching around chanting that Jews are subhumans whose lives not worthy of being defended and protected, but no one is going to get very far in Israeli politics mouthing such a platform. The huge bulk of Israelis see the Labor Party and the “center-Left” as directly responsible for turning Gaza into one huge rocket launching pad and putting almost the entire Israeli civilian population at risk, all in the name of “the need to end occupation.” Israelis now understand that Arab terrorism is not caused by Israeli occupation but by the ending of Israeli occupation.

That means that everyone knows that at the very first electoral opportunity, the Israeli voter will exact his revenge against those who turned Gaza into Hamastan. That means the Labor Party and Tzipi Livni’s “Tnuah” party, what is left of the once large Kadima bloc.<<<

Netanyahu Springs his TrapDecember 8, 2014 by Steven Plaut

Steven Plaut is a native Philadelphian who teaches business finance and economics at the University of Haifa in Israel. He holds a PhD in economics from Princeton. He is author of the David Horowitz Freedom Center booklets about the Hamas and Jewish Enablers of the War against Israel.

Benjamin Netanyahu may demonstrate foolishness regarding a great many things in public life, but no one ever accused him of demonstrating foolishness with regard to his own electoral prospects. His enemies are suddenly foaming at the mouth. In response to the remarkable jump in Likud popularity in the polls, they claim, Bibi has decided to pull a fast one and has decided to take the undemocratic decision of holding elections. That Netanyahu’s rivals claim it is undemocratic when elections are held is only the tip of their problems. What really has them worried is that the Israeli electorate is about to sic itself against most of the non-Likud parties.............

Prof. Eyal Zisser, an expert on Syria from the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday, “Israel’s policy is clear. It does not interfere in the war and has no interest to attack [Syrian President] Bashar Assad and its army, or to topple the regime.”

Dawn Perlmutter is the Director of the Symbol Intelligence Group and one of the leading subject matter experts (SME) in symbols, symbolic methodologies, unfamiliar customs and ritualistic crimes. She designed and developed Jihad-ID, a symbolic database of the signs, symbols and identifiers of global jihad.

lpThe August 9, 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO by Officer Darren Wilson was the origin of a national myth. Myths are sacred stories that serve to explain the world view of a people. They often originate as distorted accounts of real historical events that storytellers repeatedly elaborate on until the primary figure in the account achieves the status of a saint or a god. A culture’s myths provide a sense of identity, shared lifestyle, affirm beliefs and values and are expressed in symbols and rituals. A national myth is a fictional narrative that omits important historical details, or adds details where there is no evidence, but is held as true due to its symbolic meaning for the nation. Michael Brown has become the symbol of racism, police brutality and social injustice. Evidence is irrelevant because myths are symbolic not literal truths..............

Though the bombings were not officially confirmed, then Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that a strike in January 2013 was ‘proof that when we say something we mean it.’ He went on to say that Syria should not be ‘allowed to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon.’

Balderdash! Mr. (Gen.) Barak is the wrong man to be sending a message about Israeli resolve. He has caved to the West and Israeli “peace parties” whenever confronted by them. It should be recalled that Barak unilaterally withdrew Israeli troops from south Lebanon in 2000, leaving the field open for Hezbollah exploitation. Hezbollah did not miss the opportunity and turned the void into a fortress from which it has attacked Israel. Barak was also willing to give much of Jerusalem to the Palestinians. He has all the intestinal fortitude of an al dente noodle.

Look at the language Barak uses when talking about Syria’s supplying Hezbollah. He says this “should” not be allowed. He did not say Syria “WOULD” not be allowed to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon. While some may view my complaint as a semantic quibble, the verbs are blatantly, patently different and show the vacillating nature of Mr. Barak. As a spokesman for Israel, Mr. Barak is the worst possible choice because he has lost all credibility.

Hezbollah does not need Russian supplied S-300 missiles in south Lebanon in order to fight IS in Syria. The missiles are needed by Hezbollah to protect its assets in south Lebanon against Israeli retaliation for future acts of terror against Israel from its bases in Lebanon.

Although the major media remain mum on the subject, it appears that a black female sergeant by the name of Kizzy Adoni supervised the arrest of the 6’4,” 400 lb. Eric Garner in New York City on July 17, 2014. As NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo and former LAPD Sergeant Stacey Koon can attest, there seems to a serious double standard at play here.

Unlike Missouri, New York State allows only very limited disclosure of grand jury proceedings. What follows is based on the bits of evidence that have made their way into the public sphere. The most compelling of that evidence is the three-minute amateur video of Garner’s arrest. This video has numerous edits so it is impossible to draw a perfect timeline of events.

The video shows the massive Garner loudly telling two undercover officers that he does not want to be arrested for selling black market cigarettes. Garner, 43, had been arrested more than thirty times previously on charges including assault and resisting arrest. He had also been arrested several times previously for selling unlicensed cigarettes and was out on bail when arrested.

Knowing this, the officers appear to fence with Garner while they wait for back-up to arrive. They are also well aware that an unfriendly witness is shooting video. Given the edits in the video, it is impossible to tell how long they waited, but it was at least a few minutes. Finally, Pantaleo, an eight-year veteran, attempts to grab Garner’s arm to handcuff him, and Garner throws him off. “Don’t touch me,” he shouts.

At this point, Pantaleo, who is about a half a foot shorter and 200 pounds lighter than Garner, leaps up and puts Garner in a headlock. According to Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch, Pantaleo did “nothing more than take Mr. Garner into custody as instructed.” He did so using “the take-down technique that he learned in the academy.” The classic chokehold, the kind featured in the Spike Lee movie Do the Right Thing, is intended to cause a struggling perp to lose consciousness.

Pantaleo’s goal is to take Garner down, which he does with some success. He keeps him in that hold for about fifteen seconds. Had Garner not health problems -- obesity, advanced diabetes, heart disease and asthma -- he likely would not have been hurt. There were 228,000 misdemeanor arrests in New York City in 2013. No others ended in this fashion.

As Pantaleo and several other officers hold Garner down to cuff him, Garner repeats several times, “I can’t breathe.” He obviously can, but he is clearly in some distress. A second video shows several officers tending to Garner, now lying on his side, as they await an ambulance.

Six minutes into this second video, the officers load Garner onto a stretcher, no easy task, and he is carted away. By this point, however, he seems to have lost consciousness. He reportedly suffers cardiac arrest in the ambulance and dies in the hospital an hour later.

Among the few media outlets to address the role of Sgt. Adoni was the aptly named LA Progressive. Cheryl Dorsey, a black former LAPD sergeant, took Adoni to task. “I am appalled by the seeming lack of leadership displayed by the sergeant on the scene during the #ICantBreathe incident,” Dorsey wrote. Adoni, Dorsey explained, was expected to manage and control the subordinate officers under her command. “So then for a sergeant, and a black woman at that, to stand idly by and do nothing is egregious,” she concluded.

Only Pantaleo, however, faced indictment. Adoni, by contrast, was offered immunity to testify against him. Sgt. Stacey Koon, who managed the arrest of Rodney King after a high-speed chase in 1991, had no such luck. Like Adoni, he merely supervised the scene and did not touch King during the arrest. Unlike Garner, King survived the arrest. Nevetheless, Koon was tried in a criminal court for an excess use of force.

At the trial, the defense attorneys convinced the jury that the officers were following procedure. After the acquittal of Koon and three other officers, a massive riot erupted in Los Angeles that led to fifty-three deaths. In an apparent effort to appease the black community, the Department of Justice tried and convicted Koon of violating King’s civil rights -- double jeopardy in all but name -- and sentenced him to thirty months in prison.

Although not indicted by the Richmond County [Staten Island] grand jury, nine of whose twenty-four members were minorities, Pantaleo may have a civil rights case of his own. As PBA president Lynch noted, Pantaleo took Garner into custody “as instructed.” What caused Garner such distress was not so much the take-down as the pressure three officers, Pantaleo among them, brought to bear on Garner in trying to cuff him. Health professionals call this “restraint-related positional asphyxia.” It was during this sequence that Garner repeated, “I can’t breathe.”

Adoni could have called the officers off, much as Koon could have called the officers off King, but she did not. The initial police report quotes Adoni as saying, “The perpetrator’s condition did not seem serious and he did not appear to get worse.”

That Adoni was offered immunity, and Koon or Pantaleo not, gives the appearance at least of a race-based application of justice.

Pantaleo has one other major gripe. As a result of affirmative action, collective bargaining, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, the NYPD ranks are loaded with physically useless cops. Many of them were on the scene that day. At least two male officers were less than 5’ 6” and slight. Three other male officers were obese, one shockingly so, and the two female sergeants appeared to be both short and overweight. If Pantaleo had not been there, it is hard to imagine how his colleagues would have effected an arrest.

There are lessons to be learned in studying this incident, but none of them holds much interest for the activists, the media, the New York City mayor, and the White House. They have got their narrative, and they will stick to it, even after it falls apart. For their part, the police will quietly withdraw from pro-active policing in black communities. As the treatment of Daniel Pantaleo and Ferguson’s Darren Wilson have shown, there is no future in it

I see that Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson has come back and polluted the thread with more shit fromm the American Stinker, but still is unable to substantiate the lies, libels and delusions he tells.

Again he has Failed to perform, again he has Failed in his civic responsibilities.Again the Zionist has wrapped himself in unsubstantiated lies, repeated the libels of Talmud and proven that his moniker is well earned, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson just dodges his responsibility to his community.

More comments about US Vice President Joe Biden saying that Israel was committing War Crimes as describd in the Geneva Accords, to which Israel is signatory.

According to Israeli professor Yossi Mekelberg ” in the occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza, Palestinian’s rights are constantly and continuously violated. Beyond the green line there is no trace of Israeli democracy, only a very harsh occupation. A source of particular concern is the implementation of collective punishment policy by the Israeli security forces, on the Palestinian population in contravention of international law.”

He added in a recent article :”The phenomenon is taking place not only as a specific response to Palestinian militants’ attacks on Israeli targets. It is a daily occurrence aimed to deter the population from any form of resistance out of fear and to ensure the security (not to mention control of the territories) of Jews at the expense of Palestinians’ basic rights.”

The last few weeks witnessed the return of the Israeli practice of collective punishment, especially house demolitions, of entirely innocent Palestinians, for acts, deplorable as they might be, that were carried out by others.

Mekelberg says the "Israeli government argues that house demolitions, as other forms of collective punishment, are actually not punishments but aim to deter others from carrying out similar attacks on Israelis. However, there is no evidence that collective punishment deters would be assailants.”

Mekelberg concluded that ” the demolition of houses of the families of Palestinians, who killed Israelis in terror attacks, can only be regarded as an act of punishment and revenge.”

Remarks on actions that can be substantiated, can be documented.Much like Israel's assistance to Rios Mont and the genocide they perpetrated in Guatemala.Substantiated in Guatemalan Courts and by CBS News, concurrent with the killing of innocents, in Guatemala.

Israeli Zionists, they have a long, long history of genocidal practices, dating back over 3,000 years.If one believes the claims of modern Zionists, that there is a direct line from the genocides of Joshua to the War Crimes of Netanyahu.

Which is, in and of itself, another of the modern Zionists lies, but they do seem to believe it. They are delusional, but they believe the insanity.

SodaStream exploring new lows in its equity values.Now trading below $21 per share.

It was trading at over $70 per share, just a year ago, before it was targeted by the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions Movement.

"O"rdure insists tha the 'basics' of SodaStream are sound, a dubious proposition, and if he is correct, it illustrates the strength of the BDS Movement, its ability to target and then destroy shareholder value in the Israeli economy.

Several opinion polls published late last week after Mr Netanyahu precipitated the move to elections by sacking two centrist ministers showed that an overwhelming majority of Israelis do not want him to be PM after the election. In a poll of 500 respondents published in The Jerusalem Post, 60 per cent said they did not want Mr Netanyahu to remain in office, with only 34 per cent saying they did and 6 per cent saying they did not know.

Among politicians, there has also been a loss of faith in Mr Netanyahu, according to Sam Lehman-Wilzig, a political scientist at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv. “They don’t trust him, they think he’s tired, they think he’s staying in power without vision,” he said. Mr Lehman-Wilzig believes there is a strong possibility that the hard right Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, will prefer this time to ally himself with the centre-left as an alternative to Mr Netanyahu.

Russia has demanded an explanation from Israel about air strikes in Syria on Sunday that the Syrian government attributed to Israel

"Moscow is deeply worried by this dangerous development, the circumstances of which demand an explanation," Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.

In a letter to the United Nations, Russia complained about Israel's "aggressive action" and demanded that such attacks should not happen again, the spokesman said.

Syria also complained to the UN about the strikes, demanding that the Security Council "severely condemn the Israeli attack and impose punitive sanctions on Israel due to its support of Syrian terrorist organizations."

... , we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.”Even if the other “bad guys” were affiliated with al-Qaeda. “We understand that they are pretty bad guys,”- Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren

AnonymousMon Dec 08, 08:54:00 AM ESTRussia has demanded an explanation from Israel about air strikes in Syria on Sunday that the Syrian government attributed to Israel

"Moscow is deeply worried by this dangerous development, the circumstances of which demand an explanation," Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.

In a letter to the United Nations, Russia complained about Israel's "aggressive action" and demanded that such attacks should not happen again, the spokesman said.

Syria also complained to the UN about the strikes, demanding that the Security Council "severely condemn the Israeli attack and impose punitive sanctions on Israel due to its support of Syrian terrorist organizations."

Israel is so sorry that illegal weapons being stored in Syria for the terrorist group Hezbollah exploded last night..

You have to have balls to quote anything you hear on FOX. That is a given.

However, their recent trend to give air-headed eye candy their own programs takes them to even a lower level if that is possible. Chicks named Jedidiah? Good lord.

I thought FOX had reached their nadir when they put on The Five, a conglomeration of five dolts where a guy like Bob Bechel is the relative voice of reason. However, this morning I saw Outnumbered a show where four distaff members of the FOX staff (all with beautiful legs by the way) 'outnumber' some random guy they pull in to fill the center seat.

On Thursday night in Portland, Oregon, where I live, there was another protest. The demonstrators blocked a few streets downtown; they went to the Moda Center, where the Trailblazers were in a tight one with the Indiana Pacers. They were marching because another grand jury had decided not to indict another cop for killing another unarmed black man. The incident they were protesting this time happened in Staten Island, the full width of the continent away. But they were angry nonetheless – not only because of what happened, but of the underlying, centuries-old imbalances that allow such a thing to happen. It was a protest against an act but also against a system.

Last month I went to Missouri on assignment to cover the protests in Ferguson. In many ways, the events that precipitated the Ferguson protests echo what took place in Staten Island a week later in the case of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who was killed during an altercation with police.

But beyond the raw pain and anger I saw in Ferguson, there was also something arguably more alarming – an entire urban structure built on inequality.

The first thing I did after landing in St. Louis airport in late November was go to Clayton. It’s a 15-minute drive to the seat of St. Louis County, a well-manicured town of about 16,000. I went to Clayton because I heard protesters had blocked a couple of intersections downtown, but by the time I got there, the demonstration was over.

Instead I found myself wandering through Clayton’s suburban backstreets and cul-de-sacs, taking in the scenery before I headed north to Ferguson. I passed row upon row of wide, stately homes. Their skin is of immaculate brick and stone, their roofs lined with terracotta tiles, their lawns littered with the autumnal shedding of curbside trees. Every new street presents at least one million-dollar stunner.

The average household income in Clayton, Missouri, is $85,000 (U.S.), almost twice the statewide average. The town is 77 per cent white. Ferguson, a 20-minute drive north, is two-thirds black and has an average household income of about $37,000. Both towns – and about 90 others – comprise the sprawling mass that is St. Louis County. That municipal kinship aside, Clayton and Ferguson may as well reside on two different planets.

Last weekend, the Globe published a story on how the Ferguson protests have become an American phenomenon, sparking a nationwide conversation on race, poverty and violence. But where there is a story about breadth, there is also a story about depth.

The August 9 killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, by white police officer Darren Wilson left a raw laceration in St. Louis County. Beneath that wound is something much deeper, a sickness of the urban organs, decades old – a cascade of fundamental flaws in the way this place was designed.

Consider, as a starting point, an old two-story home in north St. Louis – for the most part aesthetically unchanged today from the way it looked when it was built in 1906 – where the history of racial discrimination on America took a sharp turn.

In 1930, the Shelleys, a black family from Mississippi, moved to St. Louis. After living a while with friends and relatives, the family of eight began looking for a home. They eventually found a place on Labadie Avenue on the north side of town. There was only one problem – the home was governed by a “restrictive covenant,” which was essentially a contract that, for all intents and purposes, represented a promise by white homeowners not to sell to black buyers. By partaking in such covenants, entire neighbourhoods were kept white.

Even though the owner of the property agreed not to enforce the covenant, the Shelleys faced stiff opposition from other owners on Labadie Avenue. One white couple, the Kraemers, filed a lawsuit to keep the black family out. The case of Shelley v. Kraemer eventually made it all the way to the Supreme Court. In a landmark ruling, the Court sided with the black family, marking the beginning of the end for racially motivated covenants.

The history of St. Louis is littered with instances of federal courts striking down racial restrictions on urban development. For a short period in the middle of the last century, the St. Louis metropolitan area was one of a select few in the United States that prohibited blacks from moving to any area that was 75 per cent or more white. Proponents of this segregation tried to justify it on separate-but-equal grounds, because it also banned whites from moving into majority-black neighbourhoods, but the courts weren’t buying that argument because virtually no such whites existed. Indeed, for most of the last century, much of St. Louis’ urban transformation has been influenced by whites trying to get away from blacks. Even Ferguson, which is now two-thirds black, started out as a white-flight suburb, populated initially by an exodus from St. Louis proper.

As the courts repeatedly struck down racial restrictions (and with the introduction of the Fair Housing Act in the late 1960s), overt racial segregation in St. Louis County began to subside. But in this county, as in so many others across the United States, the fault lines of segregation exist not along one axis but two: race and wealth. There are haves and have-nots, and the less you have, the more likely you are to be black. And while overt racial segregation is now verboten, segregation by wealth is a close and perfectly legal proxy.

“When you discriminate economically, it creates very distinct racial patterns,” says Clarissa Hayward, an associate professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis.

As an example, she points to Ladue, a St. Louis suburb where the median income is $88,000 and the population is 94 per cent white. Like other wealthy municipalities that make up St. Louis County – there are more than 90 of them in total, more per capita than any other county in the U.S. – Ladue severely limits the construction of high-density and subsidized housing. It also requires single-family houses to be built on relatively large lots, making them, on average, more expensive. The result is the institutional, economic equivalent of a gated community, writ city-wide.

The result of these urban policies is evident in places such as Ferguson. Whereas the poverty rate in Ladue is 2 per cent, in Ferguson it is 22 per cent – and even higher for the town’s black population. This discrepancy creates a cascade of consequences.

Because Ferguson’s population, partially as a result of decades-old discrimination both racial and economic, is relatively poor, the city struggles for traditional funding. Poor people don’t buy expensive homes, so property tax revenue is low; poor people don’t make much income, so income tax revenue is low.

To make ends meet, municipalities such as Ferguson have resorted to more direct means – namely, fees and court fines. Jaywalking and speeding citations aren’t just a tool for enforcing public safety, they’ve increasingly become a financial necessity.

But beyond creating a sense of resentment among the citizenry, these revenue tools have direct and sometimes life-changing consequences. In a place where the median household income is about $37,500 (roughly $10,000 less than the state average), tickets often go unpaid, leading to a warrant, which in turn can lead to arrest, destroying job prospects in the process.

But there’s more. In Missouri, those on parole or probation are not allowed to vote. That means a fine that started out as a financial measure for the municipality can end up as a tool of political disenfranchisement. And in a place where two-thirds of the population is black, decades’ worth of this cycle are plainly visible in the hard numbers of who gets arrested and who does the arresting.

According to the Missouri attorney general, 92 per cent of police searches and 86 per cent of car stops in Ferguson last year involved black people. The difference in arrests was an order of magnitude – 483 blacks, 36 whites. The racial divide is equally stark on the other end of the power spectrum. But for one school board member and one city councillor, Ferguson’s political class is white. In a police force of 53 officers, all but three are white. But for a surge in turnout during Barack Obama’s two presidential runs, voting rates in Ferguson’s black community are significantly lower than those of white voters. The levers of power, long ago established, are in many ways self-perpetuating.

Finally, the cascade of structural flaws presents its bloody conclusion on Canfield Drive, the residential street in predominantly black east Ferguson where Darren Wilson shot Mike Brown to death. It appears unlikely now that the details of the shooting will ever be determined in a criminal trial. But the glaring institutional flaws – the long-established fault lines of race and power – that led to this moment are plain to see. The killing may have provided the spark that ignited months of sometimes violent protests, but there was never any shortage of kindling.

In my time on assignment in Ferguson I interviewed about two dozen people who live there. I asked almost all of them how optimistic they are that, in a year’s time, the protests sparked by Mr. Brown’s killing will have resulted in positive institutional change. Most were optimistic that there will be at least some improvements – a police force that more closely resembles the makeup of the community it serves, for example, or at least the use of body cameras by all officers.

And yet there is a kind of resignation that when the world once again turns its eye on this Missouri suburb next August, it will find Ferguson’s lacerations stitched shut, but the underlying sickness yet untreated."

When confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense, as he will likely be, Aston Carter will have his hands full as he seeks to steward America’s national defense strategy. Among his hardest challenges will likely be the situation the United States and its coalition partners face in Syria as they seek to contain and eventually destroy the Islamic State.

President Barack Obama’s present strategy for dealing with ISIS in Syria is essentially an embrace of the path of least political resistance, despite its dubious efficacy...................

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.